Ask HN: What are your startup ideas that you aren't pursuing? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are your startup ideas that you aren't pursuing?

19 pointsmarginalcodex13 comments

(I'm going to keep posting this topic on HN - partially because I think the answers will be interesting, but also partially as an experiment to see how much randomness goes into a HN post becoming successful).

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It turns out that councils (i.e. a city council) don't actually know where their pipes run and in particular don't know where their storm water drains are. This makes flood planning very difficult. So there's money in driving around a la streetview and finding where the drains are. One could possibly license the actual streetview images and mine them, too.

http://cityscan.com/

FYI - most links the menus lead to 404

Oops, looks like they went out of business. They had some pretty interesting LIDAR technology for mapping cities. Not sure what happened.

I was just reading this http://qz.com/759177/major-chinese-cities-cant-seem-to-figur... and then I saw your post. Looks like Chinese cities would have very good use of what your startup has to offer!

Ever moved a couch into an apartment with a small and/or winding staircase? It's a huge pain in the ass, and a couple years ago when I moved 3 times in a short period I really wanted to find a better way.

My idea is to use 3d scanning to help you move, using something like Google's project Tango. You scan your couch, bed, or table and the area you want need to move it through. Then it could algorithmically find the easiest path to move it and it shows you directions, so you and your moving partner know exactly how/when to rotate, turn, etc.

I'm sure it's possible because my mechanical engineering friends have software to do something similar for their robotic arms on the assembly line. I think this idea is really cool and hard to make profitable :)

I have one of the largest database of camping sites and hostels globally at http://www.wikibackpacker.com/ I get pretty decent organic footfalls and it's stressing out my hosting bills.

I tried to get some media coverage & some funding for it but it's getting impossible from Australia.

It's stuck in a limbo for now until I decide what to do with it.

Describe someone who is using this service, and how they use it.

Subscription boxes for very specific fetishes. The market is there, and willing to pay. Problems are: a) Margins don't justify time required for a worthwhile product b) The state of payment processing for anything "adult" is offensive